U.S. authorities filed suit Thursday seeking to seize the building of a Sacramento dispensary, charging the marijuana store violated federal laws against drug transactions near schools. The forfeiture complaint filed over the Sacramento Holistic Healing Center – a Southside Park dispensary also known as “Grass on 10th” – marks the first formal federal seizure action against a medical marijuana outlet in the city, Peter Hecht reports in the Sacramento Bee. In court papers filed in Sacramento, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner suggested the business was being targeted because it was dispensing marijuana within 1,000 feet of [...]
Three months after federal authorities seized its bank account in a probe of alleged concealment of medical marijuana proceeds, a Sacramento dispensary announced Thursday it will close its doors on New Year’s Eve. The One Love Wellness Center, a 7,000-square-foot dispensary on El Camino Avenue near Business 80, was one of 38 dispensaries allowed to apply to stay in business by the city under a local medical marijuana ordinance passed by the City Council. But the dispensary attracted the attention of federal authorities in September when officials obtained a warrant to seize its bank account, [...]
Medical marijuana advocates want to create a statewide system for licensing, regulating and taxing the industry as a way of persuading federal officials to ease up on their crackdown of California’s pot clubs and growers. After months of study, a coalition of medical marijuana activists led by Americans for Safe Access and a labor union that represents dispensary workers in Northern California, have proposed a 2012 ballot initiative that would create an appointed Board of Medical Marijuana Enforcement charged with overseeing businesses and nonprofits that grow, distribute, sell and test pot both in its raw [...]
SAN FRANCISCO — Attorney General Kamala Harris urged California lawmakers Wednesday to get serious about clarifying the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law, saying numerous holes in the notoriously liberal statute have left law enforcement and legitimate patients in a near-constant state of uncertainty. In a letter to the Legislature’s leaders, Harris said the state needs to spell out if the hundreds of storefront dispensaries and delivery services that sell marijuana—purportedly for medical use—are legal, or if the only lawful way to obtain the drug is through patient collectives in which all members jointly grow their [...]
In 2009, as Los Angeles’ booming medical marijuana economy inspired an emerald city of weed, Vanessa Sahagun found a business opportunity as “Chacha Vavoom,” maven of the 420 Nurses. Chacha and her “nurses” became a pot culture phenomenon. They savored bong hits on YouTube, modeled skimpy outfits to promote marijuana dispensaries – and stirred young men at medical pot shows teeming with sexual imagery. “I was proud I was opening up a market creating ‘green jobs’ for these ladies,” said Sahagun, 25. But now, the sexual marketing of medical marijuana – with racy promotions that [...]
UKIAH — An intensifying federal crackdown on growers and sellers of state-authorized medical marijuana has badly shaken the billion-dollar industry, which has sprung up in California since voters approved medical use of the drug in 1996, and has highlighted the stark contradiction between federal and state policies. Federal law classifies the possession and sale of marijuana as a serious crime and does not grant exceptions for medical use, so the programs adopted here, in 15 other states and in the District of Columbia exist in an odd legal limbo, Erik Eckholm reports in the New [...]
With legal uncertainty swirling around the issue, the city of Sacramento formally entered a holding pattern on its issuance of medical marijuana permits Tuesday night in a move that advocates said could help save the industry in the city. Last month, City Manager John Shirey ordered a “temporary freeze” on new permits for medical marijuana dispensaries as federal authorities launched a series of crackdowns on the facilities around the state. At least three Sacramento dispensaries have been investigated by federal drug enforcement agents, Ryan Lillis reports in the Sacramento Bee. At the same time, a [...]
Medical cannabis patients and several noted industry leaders rallied Wednesday outside the federal courthouse in downtown Sacramento. They were there to protest the recent federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries and collective growers, with Assemblymember Tom Ammiano calling on President Obama to order federal enforcement agencies to stand down. “I support the president, but he is confusing the issue by having these people muddy up the water and violate civil rights and human rights,” Ammiano said. “(Proposition) 215 is to be respected. It is an issue of state rights.” The rally came days after the [...]
Medical marijuana advocates have filed lawsuits in California’s four federal judicial districts aimed at quickly winning court orders to halt the U.S. attorneys from closing dispensaries. The lawsuits are the second legal challenge to the stepped-up enforcement efforts that the four prosecutors announced last month at a high-profile joint news conference in Sacramento, John Hoeffel reports in the Los Angeles Times. Matt Kumin, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuits, said that Tuesday the plaintiffs plan to ask the judges assigned to the cases for temporary restraining orders halting the crackdown. “The government has [...]
Pot suppliers went to federal court Monday to try to halt the Obama administration’s campaign to close down their dispensaries, saying the survival of California’s medical marijuana law is at stake. In lawsuits filed in each of the state’s four federal districts, medical marijuana cooperatives, joined by patients and property owners, accused the Justice Department of violating an agreement to leave them alone if they complied with state law, Bob Egelko reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. The department had pledged to the courts, and to patients and their suppliers, that “those who possess, grow [...]
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